Sky Sports And The Theme Tunes: A Successful Relationship?

You can’t beat a sport montage; it’s something that strikes an emotional chord like nothing else. Watching your favourite stars highlights whilst listening to songs like M83, Outro is unbeatable – if poetry in motion ever had a definition, that’d be it.

Combining songs and video footage can have a profound benefit for the song. Take the 2012 and 2013 John Lewis Christmas adverts, both saw Gabrielle Aplin’s version of ‘Power of Love’ and Lilly Allen’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ go straight to No.1 in the charts – the fact they both sent the UK population to a standstill also probably helped.

But in the sporting world you can’t rely on a snowman and a snowwoman to turn on the waterworks; it’s the job of the stars to create the nostalgia amongst the audience, with the help of the music in the background.

And, if you were to look back at the different Sky Sports introductions as you nestle into a Super Sunday marathon, different songs used for the beginning of the show varied in levels of success in the UK charts.

Tom Grennan’s ‘Found What I’ve Been Looking For’ was the track of choice this season but it failed to make much headway in the top 40 – just one-week in the charts suggests the high-tech-Grennan combination in the introduction this season hasn’t worked as well. Sigma’s, ‘Higher’, ft. Labrinth, fared better but didn’t make a comeback to the charts, upon its repeat usage for the Sky Sports opener.

Two huge songs. Tinnie Tempah’s, ‘Written In The Stars’ had a long shelf as the Sky Sports song of choice, however, its main success came upon its initial release as it topped the charts in 2010.

Perhaps the greatest football song of all-time in Kasabian’s, ‘Club Foot’ – beautifully played out by Santiago Munez in Goal – was surprisingly not a top 10 hit, and peaked six years before its use on Sky Sports at No.19 – still the perfect tune to get the blood pumping before Super Sunday.

What a tune. The song which everyone knows only certain sections of the lyrics just missed out on the top spot in the charts in 2000 – where it peaked. Moloko’s record didn’t make a comeback in the charts despite its two years on Sky Sports, again pointing to a lack of correlation between being on Sky Sports and having success in the UK charts.

It would therefore appear, having your tune belted out on the opener of the Sky Sports show won’t play a major part in its success in the charts, as the only introductory track to get back into the top 40 during its time on the show was Tom Grennan’s, ‘Found What I’ve Been Looking For’.

Still, seems about right when it’s the Justin Biebers’ and Harry Styles’ of this day and age who sell the most amount of records.